a small river
 

 

 

 

 

 

the river between us

in the river that your father fished
my father was baptized.    it was
their hunger that defined them,

one, a man who knew he could
feed himself if it all came down,
the other a man who knew he needed help.

this is about more than color.  it is
about how we learn to see ourselves.
it is about geography and memory.

it is about being poor people
in america.    it is about my father
and yours and you and me and
the river that is between us.

–Lucille Clifton

 
The following reflection on “the river between us” is by Dennis Huffman, program director of Prince George’s Community College at University Town Center. Since 2009, Dennis, inspired by Teaching with Fire, has been sharing poems and reflections with faculty and staff each week. This happens to be his post for last week.

In a 1995 speech to the American Association of Community Colleges, President Bill Clinton noted that “the fault line of American society is education.”  “You,” he told that room full of college administrators, “you are on the fault line.” He could just as easily have said “on the river,” as Lucille Clifton’s poem so powerfully illustrates.  The river “is about being poor people in america” and a big part of the community college mission is to be on the side of the poor.

For all the fine talk, class and race continue to cut through our communities, eroding opportunities in some places and depositing them in others.  Following Clifton’s river metaphor, a community college can be a bridge or a ferry to a better tomorrow.  Sadly, it can also be merely a scenic overlook, or even a treacherous stretch of eddies and rapids.  More importantly, each of us on the faculty and staff can be any of those things for the students who come to us hoping to cross over to the other side.

How do our students see themselves and this river of ours?  How are they learning to see themselves through the images we reflect back at them?  What is our role in the swirl of “geography and memory”?  Why do some students swim while others sink?   We’ve all been around enough to know that intelligence is only one factor – and not the most important.  What can be done about the river that flows between our successful students and those who fail?

Thanks for all you do to help our students cross into a better future.

– Dennis Huffman